


Diminishing Returns

by sddeer



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Regret, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5666134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sddeer/pseuds/sddeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS for: series finale.</p>
<p>"But that's just you, my plain and simple tailor friend. Stubborn, as always. Either alive or dead. Schroedinger's tailor."</p>
<p>Julian left Cardassia Prime knowing he may never see Garak again. In his 27th weekly transmission to Garak's last known location, the doctor speculates on why his friend hasn't responded to any of his messages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diminishing Returns

> OUTGOING TRANSMISSION
> 
> **ORIGINATING:** STARFLEET STAR BASE DEEP SPACE NINE  
>  **TERMINATING:** COORDINATES [REDACTED], CARDASSIA PRIME  
>  **RECIPIENT:** [REDACTED]  
>  **SUBJECT:** Week 27

My dear friend,

I hope this transmission, as well as all the ones I've sent prior, find you well. Hopefully, my messages aren't bouncing from relay to relay, ending somewhere far from you in an uninhabited part of the galaxy. Perhaps you don't want to be found. You'll be relieved to know I'm not looking. Oh, I am tempted, my friend. But I have not even once tried to look into your whereabouts. 

Assuming you're still about, somewhere.

…Garak. 

I dream of Cardassia, is that strange? But I do. I wasn't there long, and it certainly wasn't the Cardassia you might have wanted me to see. Still, I close my eyes and unbidden come to me the images of the city, the hills, the plains, the burning sun.

You. I see you, in a thousand forms in a million ways, I see every Cardassian on the planet, and each of them is you.

Ever since you've been away, my ability for discourse and conversational evasion and innuendo has all but dwindled away. I am nothing without my teacher, it would seem. You'd be disappointed. If you come back, we can resume our lunches. I'm sure I could get back into the swing of things if I had some of your ever-so-innocent, witty repartee to give me a boost. I'd put you to shame if you'd seen me trying to speak to the Cardassian who passed through the other day. She was probably very beautiful, and she tried to have an argument -- er, a discussion, that is, about literature. Politics. She sat across from me in the Replimat, spitting venom laced in sugar and intrigue, hooking, baiting, pulling; yet I was unmoved. I found my heart wasn't in it. I listened. I agreed. I nodded politely. She left, disappointed.

I fancied I knew how she felt.

Reports about Cardassia Prime come in. Rumours, too, a bit here, a whisper there. Quark, you know, he keeps me updated. He says he hasn't heard anything about you. I believe him.

I tell myself stories. They're all true, in their own way. Elim Garak, leading the restoration efforts. He wears the only fine suit left on the planet, and whispers echo behind him. Everyone knows who Garak was, but can anybody possibly know who he is now? Benevolent, but it's a mask. Has he gone soft? Lived too long with the humans on Terok Nor? A flash in his eyes, and the workers still; a smile, and they shiver. You know the smile. You must. I can see it now…

Or, or-- a farm outside the edge of the suburban settlement, growing mostly roots that won't be affected by the drought. End the famine. Garak, I know about the famine. Gods, I-… on this farm, hundreds of workers. It doesn't matter what class or station or role is in anyone's past. Every Cardassian can die of hunger. Too many have. They've made an exodus to the farms, but it's not only to feed themselves. I've seen the agricultural reports. I hope they aren't faked. I see the crop production taking a promising upturn, and I whisper, "Garak's found a way." 

It's hard to think of you out there, shirt sleeves torn and muddied, claws bare and digging into the half-sand, half-soil, for once feeling warm enough, like you never could during your exile here. It was so cold. I'm starting to feel it, too. But I walk through the Promenade and see a stall filled with fruits and tubers and vegetables, and I see you planting and harvesting, loading up the trucks, sending them to town, and I know you are feeding the planet. A simple farmhand, but despite your objections, you know I could never see you as 'plain and simple,' no matter what profession you might claim. You are nourishing a Cardassia that has been starving so long, too long, perhaps longer than you've been alive. You're nursing her back to health.

Does she thank you?

Garak, I… I sleep at night and see the bodies of the dead. Children, and they are you, starved and withered away. Adults, and they are you, cradling those small and lifeless frames, weeping, seething, shaking involuntarily of illness and hunger, as the military vigilantes offer a phaser to their temples. They can get what they want, or they can take it, they say. Poor trigger discipline. A phaser fires. Parents and children are reunited in death in that moment.

Sometimes you're the one holding the firearm. Sometimes you're the one giving the order to fire. Order is the only thing Cardassians understand. Without order, the planet will curl in on itself, a husk, a shell, unable to sustain anyone. Discipline made you who you were, and it certainly wouldn't fail you now. It frightens me how close I come to understanding the Garak in this vision.

I awaken and still it lies before me, this Cardassia of mine. There is a mass grave. The stench is unbearable. The traitors to the state get no burial and are left for the wild animals and worms. Many of the bodies belonged to innocent people. You would tell me, I am certain, that there are no truly innocent people. But there they are, rotting, swollen, heat-bloated in the sickening sun, and they are innocent, and they are you. You, Garak! Is that where you are? Is that why you don't answer?

Again, I find you, in a shuttlecraft, running for some new hideaway. Cardassia has spurned you, though I know you would never -- could never -- abandon her. She has sent you away again, and instead of coming home… that is, instead of coming to the station, you're off and away. You punish yourself. Do you know that you're punishing me, too? This shuttlecraft aims for a small, dying star, and you think it's some sort of poetic justice that you'd disintegrate without a trace into an insignificant star, lightyears away from the people who would at least want to know. You stare out the shutters for a few moments before closing them completely. No point in watching your own death arrive. You've seen it enough. You've heralded it enough. All of it was for Cardassia. She is a demanding mistress, but you can't help but love her. 

These things just can't be helped. Helpless love. Hopeless love. You always did chide me for my enduring hope. 

All of these are stories of the tailor I knew. The society, the land, the people, the planet, the government, the scapegoats, the military, they're all discordant swatches of fabric, and you're salvaging them the best you can. It won't be an original creation of the finest materials, but any adequate garment is the most beautiful work of art to the naked and weary. You sew with precision, you arrange things just so, you cut, you discard. 

You really do, Garak, you discard too much, sometimes. It's good to have that extra fabric on hand. Just in case. A patch. A lining. Something. If everything is equally easy to toss aside, how can you decide what you like best? Who knows, you might even find a spare strip of fabric with more virtues than you'd previously expected, th-that might save your life one day. Even as a tourniquet. Cut off the limb that would kill you. Save the rest. Save yourself.

But that's just you, my plain and simple tailor friend. Stubborn, as always. Either alive or dead. Schroedinger's tailor. I know you didn't enjoy it, but you said it yourself: you were actually a very good tailor. Then you go about clothing your planet, sewing it back together again, only to watch someone else reap the benefits of your hard work. I hope you've found someone to appreciate you.

This all I dream. And on the very rare occasion my mind chooses to grace me with the worst vision of all, I am back to the moment we said goodbye, and I have the chance -- the curse -- to live it all over again. 

Each time, I think just as vividly as I thought before, "I am never going to see him again."

Each time, I think just as I had before, "I should beg him to come home with me."

Each time, I think, "I should resign and beg him to let me stay."

Each time… "I should kiss him."

I never do.

Garak, I'm sorry. 

I hope this transmission finds… ah, but I already said that, didn't I? Well, with everything else I can't stop from repeating, I may as well repeat that, too. I hope this transmission finds you well. Please, Garak, please be well… and alive, and safe, and strong. A-and happy! Happier than you ever could have been staying here with me. 

I'm not Cardassia. I couldn't hope to compare. I have no demands, no history, no sway over your loyalty. I have only-- 

…love to hear from you soon. Let me know if you're running short of medical supplies. Or personnel. 

Your friend,

Doctor Julian Bashir  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to Livvy (best of friends, best of betas) for being my beta despite not having seen the series finale of DS9! It takes a real trooper to spoil oneself for the sake of fanfiction.


End file.
